Let’s Get the Facts (Actual or Alternative) Straight

We are only one week into the new Washington administration and here are some things we have learned about Trump and company–or as some refer to it, 45’s dictatorship. We learned that the voice of the White House, Sean ” Shorty Spice”, berated the media in his first formal appearance for allegedly reporting falsehoods about the size of the inaugural crowd. Obviously size matters in Donald’s world.

We also learned that ego matters as Trump also alleges that voter fraud occurred because he believes he won the popular vote, not just the [antiquated] electoral college vote. And he has ordered a full investigation, mind you at the taxpayers’ expense, in an attempt to uncover the alternative facts about his popularity. Suggestion for Ms. Conway’s PR platform–you may want to add a theme song to his “make America great again” slogan; “Popular” from the Broadway show Wicked. Then he could be Wickedly Popular. Seems apropos.

So back to another 45 concept, alternative facts. When someone has to confabulate facts and deem them alternative facts it reeks of arrogant, narcissistic denial of reality. It also insults everyone’s intelligence, but more important, it discredits the entire administration and embarrasses our country. And yet he continues to think he’s popular. Uber Fascist Benito Mussolini thought he was popular too; until he was eventually deposed and later executed. However, he became very popular when his lifeless body was hung upside down in front of a gas station for public viewing. Hmm. I wonder if Italy had a National Park Service back then if Mussolini would have accused them of misrepresenting attendance numbers. I’m sure he would have if he had invented the alternative facts concept.

I could drone on about building billion-dollar country walls, deporting many hard-working, tax-paying immigrants, nominating numerous Mini-Mes for cabinet positions and [potentially] nominating dangerously conservative, white men for the Supreme Court, but I would rather explore alternative governance ideas. It’s time to face the real facts about our country and its multiple decade history of failure to effectively represent approximately half of our population. One of many examples is our partisan Congressional stalemate that has failed to pass important, progressive legislation and prevented our country from moving out of neutral. And now we are looking at probable passage of legislation that not only doesn’t move us forward but rather has us moving backward. As I mentioned in the last blog, Einstein’s definition of insanity lives and breathes in our [un]United States.

Let’s end today’s opinion on a positive note and actual fact. We saw one of the largest protest turnouts at the Washington March since the Vietnam War protests. The latter compelled Lyndon Johnson to begin withdrawing troops from this “conflict.” Perhaps our continued Washington/45 protests can become similarly organized and mission driven. We saw the birth of the Tea Party commence from random protestations and town meetings, and ultimately result in a Republican dominated Congress. If we become more organized than the ‘Tea-totalers’ and start thinking outside our redundantly ineffective political box, we can break this long-standing cycle of rinse, spin, repeat. And sometimes this requires a big systems change. Not biggly change.

As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. But the Mexican wall construction is going to be built in the following days–with our hard-earned, hijacked dollars. I’ve seen and heard enough, and I plan to call on our neophyte protest groups and anti-45 politicians to collectively organize around affecting ground-breaking governmental change. Our system is and has been broken for decades, and our dated methods of government and elections must change. Without major change we are destined to repeat this logjam of political jockeying and tire-spinning. And that is simply insane.